


And We Know that He is Human, When He Stumbles but Does Not Fall

by LadyByakko



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Cuddle Pile, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 18:34:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4030309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyByakko/pseuds/LadyByakko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Citadel is threatened by raiders, Max takes one for the team.  The Wives and Furiosa comfort him in the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And We Know that He is Human, When He Stumbles but Does Not Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Be aware that there are references to current and past non-consensual sex, but nothing explicit.

The taste in his mouth is bitter and salt, like he licked marsh mud from his tires and scavenged sand from the salt wastes. When his mouth is empty, he spits the flavor into the dirt, disgusted. The tang reminds him of all the worst parts of captivity, all the moments he has shoved to the back of his mind and doesn’t allow to surface.

These are not the memories that haunt him, they are the shadows in the night that leave him wary of strangers and flinching at small gestures. The deaths torment him in his madness; these memories merely burn the back of his eyes with half-forgotten acid.

His mouth is full again, and he counts in his mind: in-out-one, in-out-two, in-out-three...

The counting takes a long time. When he loses track, he starts over.

 

\---

 

He stumbles back to the Citadel on foot. The raiders from the mountains took his bike, which wasn’t part of the deal, but he was more interested in getting away than he was in arguing about it. A bike is only a bike – the Sisters at the Citadel have more than they know what to do with, now that the War Pups are more interested in gardening than riding to their deaths on the Fury Road.

He knows the sentries see him, from the way they whoop a warning back to the camps of people, but no one approaches. He stumbles once on the loose sand at the sound of the call, but keeps walking.

 

\---

 

In the camp below the Citadel, the people turn away from him, covering their eyes. Their deliberate shun makes his heart stutter in his chest.

The way they move away from him, the way they avert their gaze, leaves him so alone. He knows that they know what he did. He volunteered publicly, in front of a dozen witnesses, but he did not think that the whole city would know his deed. 

He stumbles again, getting on the lift, but no one offers a hand to aid him.

 

\---

 

The air in the rock caves of the Citadel is cool and clean. It soothes the burn in his throat, at least a little, but it does nothing for his filthy skin and the taste still in the back of this throat.

The corridors are empty. No one is around to watch him trip and catch himself on the wall. No one sees how long it takes him to right himself, or the whole-body flinch when he moves the wrong way and torques the muscles in his lower back. He is sore in places he doesn’t remember having, in ways he recognizes only through the veil of a half-forgotten nightmare.

 

\---

 

The Sisters are waiting in the bathing room, and Furiosa with them. He stops in the doorway, unsure why their presence makes the back of his eyes burn. He can’t bring himself to look at them, but he finds he doesn’t have to.

Within moments of his entrance, soft hands guide him deeper into the room, gently tugging at him with murmurs and wordless sounds of assurance. The soft hands pull his leather clothes away, stroke along his bruise-battered skin, guide him into a shallow pool of water that simultaneously stings and soothes.

He closes his eyes when the hands begin to stroke his hair. The last solid thought he has is to wonder why the touch doesn’t send him reeling, so soon after... 

The thought fades, and he drifts.

 

\---

 

He wakes in a pile of bodies. The Sisters’ skin is bare against his, all of them glistening clean and new, surrounding him on a pile of cushions.

“Brave Max,” Cheedo hums against the knobs of his spine.

“Brave Max,” Toast concurs from where she is draped across his bare legs.

“Brave, brave Max,” Capable murmurs, pressing a kiss to his forehead while The Dag gently strokes his short hair back from his temples.

Their touch, their presence, is like a balm to his skin. Wrapped in their bodies, he feels...

Safe.

There is a creak of leather and the sound of metal clanking against metal behind him, and he turns to see Furiosa removing her metal arm, stepping over Cheedo’s sprawled legs to join them on the pile of cushions. Capable shifts out of the way, and then Furiosa is there in front of him – one hand cupping the back of his skull while she presses their foreheads together.

“I am sorry, Max,” she whispers to him. Their foreheads press more tightly together as she pulls him closer. “I should have gone. I should have gone instead of you.”

Even the thought makes him burn.

“Never,” he says, his voice too loud and too rough in this quiet space. “Never again. Never, any of you, ever again.”

Furiosa’s eyes close, and she pulls her head back enough to gently bounce her forehead against his, just once. Against his back, he can feel wetness where Cheedo’s face is pressed. He hears a quiet sniff from where Capable and Toast are curled up together over his thighs. 

“You sound like Angharad,” says The Dag, quietly. The words feel like a benediction.


End file.
